Body Swap, anyone?

I stayed up late last night watching the movie 'It's a boy/girl thing' where the next door neighbours who hate each other inexplicably switch bodies - what follows is your regular movie plot - thrashing the other person's reputation, making the most of the physical changes, and finally ending up completely understanding one another. Other examples of this genre of movies is 'Prelude to a Kiss' where Meg Ryan during her wedding to Alec Baldwin kisses some random old codger while wondering what it would be like to be him and lo and behold! she was him, and In 'Freaky Friday' where mother and daughter exchange bodies in order to create understanding and harmony between them.
I enjoyed watching the movies but was cringing at the thought of a body swap with a boy like in 'It's a boy/girl thing' like the female in the male body has no idea what to do with the erection every morning or how to pee standing up - also the thought of exchanging bodies with an old man is not making me very happy either and my mom least of all tho can you imagine what that would do to women with Electra complexes?
It makes me wonder tho, would anybody really like to exchange bodies with another person keeping your mind and soul in place and even if you did, who exactly would you be? the person outside or the person inside coz the person inside is defintely influenced by the outer packaging and vice versa? so over a long period time, would you be you, would you be them or would you evolve into a third person creating a whole new identity for the new amalgamation? or would you just be a split personality?

6 Degrees of seperation

Swimming in an ocean of words....

.....that's really the best way to describe some of the books I read in the last year - The Jasper Fforde series starring Thursday Next are set in fiction {I know, it sounds very wierd when I type it but I have no other way to describe it}, with guest characters from all your favourite novels and even nursery rhymes. He easily wins 'Idea of the Year' much like J.K. Rowling did for Harry Potter - that kind of creativity amazes me.
All in all, I think I got a lot of reading done this year, inspite of having taking a hiatus since December - can't seem to get through one decent book - read loads of contemporary fiction but cannot get through new literature.
I just wanted to recap some of the things I read this year which have really stayed in memory:

• Jasper Fforde: Thursday Next and Nursery Crime
  
• Marian Keyes: Sushi for Beginners, Rachel's Holiday, This Charming Man -
  
• The Time Traveler's Wife
  
• The Painter of Shanghai
  
• The Zoya Factor
• Almost Single
• The Devil Wears Prada
• World according to Garp
• Lovely Bones
• David Baldacci's Camel Club series - The Camel Club, The Collectors and Stone Cold
  
• 3 Candace Bushnell Novels [did not like even one - tho I love all the TV shows]
• P.S. I love you
• Interpretation of Murder
• Sister of My Heart
• Princess Diaries [totally online!]
• Compulsive Confessor's cliterature: You Are Here
• Swati Kaushal - piece of Cake
• Chris Kuznieski - The Sign of the Cross and Sword of God
  
• Raymond Khoury - The Sanctuary
• Steve Berry - The Last Templar
• Jeffrey Archer - Prisoner of Birth
• John Grisham - Playing for Pizza
• Julia Navarro - Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud
  

I've kind of started a swapping sytem with the BFF so that pretty much leads to an interesting stream of reading since he comes across different literature. All in all, this year has been quite heavy on the religious fiction, chick literature esp Indian cliterature and the off beat novels of which my personal favourite has been the Time Traveler's Wife - cannot explain why - just really liked the novel and the circle of life it represented.

Farewell 2008....*

You went by too soon and let's hope what started with you will be succesful in the future.

I love recapping what happened in the last 365 days - it gives me a sense of what I accomplished and What I did right. Yes, I know - I'm like an ostrich - I hide my head in the sand and hope disaster can't see me but I like to focus on the positive so here is the recap of my life circa 2008.

• Started a year with a trip to the Golden Triangle for 4 days with The R's and the boy
• D got married
• Visited Mussourie
• Another Engagement
• Relationship doubt
• Visited the S's in Hong Kong
• Holidayed in Vietnam for 10 days
• Reconnected with the Apostles
• Self doubt
• Job profile changed
• Still have the boyfriend
• also discovered the boy looks like Luke Perry - Yay!
• Discovered 'How I Met Your Mother' as the new favourite TV show
• Decided to cut unhealthy associates
• Enjoyed Christmas with loads of old friends
• also enjoyed the new years with them

*This blog has been sitting in my draft folder for like 10 days - I've just decided to publish without photies or anything so I can have a black and white reminder of the last year.

Poetry, Paisa and a pinch of salt!

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee."

This is what I have just heard, along with Aubade - Vikram Seth, Pablo Neruda and Simon Armitage [who ride beautiful dark humour but I digress] at an engagement - Yes! I repeat... there was poetry reading at an engagement and this has just confirmed my opinion that I am a reverse snob. I look down from my pedestal of an ordinary middle class individual and laugh at the pretensions of the high and mighty who lament the loss of the Taj as their 'adda' and think reading poetry at their engagements proves them to be English aficionados or whatever else they are trying to say. I have realised I revel in my "Shopping in Linking Road" status as much as I enjoy the occasional visit to a 5 star. I look at my sense of balance and think that I am better than them coz I can do it all - I am not limited by the excess of money to only wearing certain clothes or eating certain foods. And while I readily admit to the pang of jealousy about the lack of economy that allows the rich to travel whenever, I take comfort in the fact that this very fact makes the experience novel for me and my eye is not jaded making every new location fresh and undiscovered and hard earned. The sad part of this is that eventually, I am no better than anybody else coz I am also looking down at people who I think are not worthy of my attention since they have it all!

Another example of how I express this is the fact that I think SRK is better than Aamir Khan mainly due to the point that Shah Rukh is very clear on who he is and how he brings SRK to every role - he does not have pretensions to histrionics or wants to spout about the skin of a role - he says I act like myself in all my films and you know what?? It works - that kind of attitude is refreshing and I appreciate the honesty though it may be a platform/gimmick - it is much more believable than going on about your 'Art'.

Tribute to my boss

Definiton from Urban dictionary.com
self-important - a person who overestimates their own importance and exhibits arrogant or pompous behavior aka lunchmeat
"That self-important ass just cut in front of us in line; he's too busy lunchmeating on her cell phone to notice anyone but himself."
Synonyms:
self-important pompous arrogant conceited self-centered egotistical megalomania delusions of grandeur power-mad ignorant goded pretentious vain stuck-up obnoxious selfish egotistic

Just makes me feel better to say it in black and white!

I don't know how effective these things are going to be but even if you can do one of these things - it might make a difference. Remember, Boond Boond se Sagar bharta Hai!

- Candle light march at 6.00 pm on Wednesday, 3rd December 2008 at the Gateway of India
- Sign an online petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/26novAct/petition.html
- there is a website http://www.smallchange.in/ which I cannot access but people are recommending - apparently it is an open petition against irresponsible media and to put in place a code of conduct for them which was started by Vishal Dadlani - the site is now hosted at this address http://smallchangedotin.wordpress.com/
- http://www.avaaz.org/en/india_undivided/
- http://www.petitiononline.com/oran2109/petition.html
- For political awareness, go to http://www.voteindia.in/


There should be other things possible - will update the list as soon as I figure them out!